"So then we rollicked for a ramps. I see the Majoress smile; she
p'inted her finger toward us.

"'S-sick 'em!' says she. 'Sick 'em, Towser!'

"It would have been all right; we was playin' on velvet, and could
have led that woman out of the store as easy as anything if that
concussed Major hadn't 'a' come to in the wrong place.

"I caught one glimpse of him holdin' tight with both hands to a
shelf, with his eyes jumpin' out of his head and his face as white
as flour.

"Of course no man would really believe that the spectacle of two
grown men playin' cat-fight in the ruins of a drug store, whilest
his own wife looked on and said 'Sick 'em!' was anything but an
optickle delusion, caused by reasons he was familiar with.

"'It's never come like this before!' hollers the Major, and then he
goes down backward for the final touch, carryin' away a kerosene
lamp, and the same landin' in a barrel of varnish.

"Well, sir, what with the stuff that was loose around there and the
varnish, my coat tails was afire when I lugged the Major out to
where Hadds was industriously savin' the Mayoress' life.

"The two hose companies got out in good shape, but a most
unforchinit dispute over who was to claim first water on the fire
led 'em to use axes and spanner wrenches and sections of hose on
each other whilst our drug store burned green and purple and pink,